


Let the Devil Out

by Dr_WD_Gaster



Category: Danny Phantom, Daredevil (TV)
Genre: AU, Crossover, Danny Fenton Is Trying His Best, Danny Fenton Needs A Hug, Gen, Human Disaster Danny Fenton, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Hurt Matt Murdock, Matt Becomes a Halfa, Not Phantom Planet Compliant, Post-Episode: s01e08 The Defenders, Season/Series 03, Whump Matt Murdock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-08-26 00:11:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16671061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_WD_Gaster/pseuds/Dr_WD_Gaster
Summary: “Fuck, what do they do in tv shows again? They shock people with electricity, right? I can make electricity.” He whispered frantically.Danny powered up his Ghost Stinger and shocked the man before him. Nothing happened. Again, again, again. Nothing happened.“LIVE FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.” He screamed as he let loose every bit of energy he had left..o0o.o0o.o0o.“Fuck. I turned the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen into a halfa.”





	1. The Find

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya, back again with another fic, instead of updating Lord Death or TetraWiz. I'm sorry but I fell into a Daredevil binge hole and I'm just slowly crawling back out. I will update LD soon, TW maybe later...Sorry about that. 
> 
> Hope you like this little teaser, though!

Danny was just going out on a stroll through the park when he saw the Midland Circle building freaking disappear into the ground. Instead of turning a blind eye and walking away, as the average person in Hell’s Kitchen probably would have done, Danny sprinted towards the scene, hoping to help if necessary.

Smoke and dust assaulted his senses, and he drew up his shirt to his nose. The wreckage itself didn’t seem so bad, for such a tall building a lot of it seemed to have fallen into the ground.

The entire place was flooded with cops. Danny heard one of them say, “Thank God that the building was empty, or this would have been a massacre.”

Something seemed off about that statement. He’d seen people in the building before, even working late hours. How convenient was it that at the moment of destruction, by an unplanned accident, the entire building was empty?

When he spotted them, he wasn’t surprised. Luke Cage and Jessica Jones were a true recipe for disaster. Although Danny noted, they weren’t obnoxiously celebrating. Their faces were set in harsh, grim lines, just like a guy standing next to them. His face seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place the blonde curls, nor the dragon tattoo on his chest.

“He never intended to make it out alive.” Curly bit out. “He made me promise to look out for his city.”

Danny’s mind was working a mile a minute. So there were people in the building, after all, that was worth checking out. With Jessica and Luke standing there though, he was inclined to believe the person Curly was talking about would be Daredevil. Nobody considered Hell’s Kitchen their city, except for Daredevil.

So maybe Daredevil was buried underneath the rubble.

Danny made up his mind quickly enough after that.

He hadn’t lived in Hell’s Kitchen long enough to have witnessed Double D’s glory days, but he’d heard plenty of stories. He couldn’t let a guy like that die in some building collapse doing who knows what, without a proper burial.

He ducked into a nearby alley and focused on the spot of cold in his chest, while softly whispering, “Going Ghost.”

A cold soothing wave washed over him as he changed into his ghost form. Instantly he lifted up from the ground and turned himself invisible and intangible. 

.o0o.o0o.o0o. 

It was a slow going process, checking each level for survivors. Just because he could make himself intangible didn’t mean he could see through the rubble. He had taken to stopping every level and listening for heartbeats. God bless enhanced senses. But he’d stopped about forty times now and still no signs of life. He’d silently wondered how deep this hole was, for this entire building to have fallen in. 

Danny was about to give up and head back when he found himself standing in a massive tunnel-like structure, with dozens of people dressed in black and with katanas strapped to their backs. All dead. 

“Jesus, this is a fucking mass grave of ninjas.” He whispered as he walked along the fallen bodies. “I just hope these were the bad guys.” 

He walked further into the tunnel when something caught him entirely off guard. A beating heart.

Danny sped forward and found himself kneeling in front of the broken, yet still living, form of Daredevil.

“Hey, buddy. It’s gonna be okay. I’m taking you back to the surface.” He said as soothingly as possible.

Daredevil opened his eyes but didn’t seem to see him. His mouth opened to say something, but he let out a horribly wet cough instead.

“Shh you don’t have to talk, I’ll get you out of here.” 

Danny gently put his hand behind the other man’s head, and was about to lift up his legs when Daredevil made a quiet needy sound and whispered, “E-Elektra.” A weak hand flopped sideways into the direction of another buried body.

“I’m sorry, buddy. But you’re the only one alive in here.” His voice was soft and saddened for the man’s loss. 

“No, El’tra. Take her.” Daredevil whispered before coughing harshly again. Something wet splattered against Danny’s black suit, and he cringed at Double D’s insistence. 

“S’rry. ‘m not gonna make ‘t.” Daredevil said as he went limp in Danny’s arms. 

“Shit shit shit. No, goddamnit. I didn’t come all this way to have you die in my arms.” Danny spat as he laid the prone body back on the floor. He started doing chest compression first, but after a minute of that nothing seemed to be changing.

“Fuck, what do they do in tv shows again? They shock people with electricity, right? I can make electricity.” He whispered frantically.

Danny powered up his Ghost Stinger and shocked the man before him. Nothing happened. Again, again, again. Nothing happened.

“LIVE FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.” He screamed as he let loose every bit of energy he had left.

A ghostly green hue enveloped Daredevil’s body as soon as Danny let go. A red circle popped into existence around his waist and moved up and down his body. The red parts of his suit turned black, and the black pieces turned red, while his skin became three shades paler. His hair turned midnight black, and his pupils changed to blood red.

As Danny tried to pick him up, he fell right through Danny’s hands.

“Fuck. I turned the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen into a halfa.”


	2. Do We Have A Deal?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so goddamn giddy about this, sheesh. This is such a breath of fresh air from what I usually write, but I'm really into it. Hope y'all like it!

Chapter 2:

Danny knew he couldn't just leave Daredevil lying there. He'd turned him into a halfa, and Double D was his damned responsibility now. Going by that logic, Danny heaved the man onto his shoulders, again thank God for superstrength, and phased them both out of the building.

Danny had a small condo in New York and gently laid his new patient onto the recently cleaned dining table. As soon as the man hit the surface, he transformed back into human form, still wearing the Devil suit, but with its previous colouration.

"The fuck do I need to do now?" He muttered as he looked over the broken body of the Devil. "I guess I should remove the suit first, and get all his wounds cleaned." He mused as he looked at the dirt stuck in ridges of the kevlar.

A moment later, the suit was phased off, and a butt naked Daredevil was lying on Danny's table, spilling blood literally everywhere. Danny realised that is was a blessing that he couldn't see the wounds before. And that they were a lot more extensive than he thought they were.

"I did not think this through. At all. I'm going to need some help." He admitted to himself as he grabbed his phone out of his pocket and dialled a number.

"Daniel, what kind of foolish nonsense did you get yourself into, now?" The cultured voice asked from the other end of the line.

"Hiya, Vlad. I'm in a bit of a pickle, and I could really use your help." Danny sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand as he glanced at the still bleeding man.

"What kind of help. I'm not cancelling another meeting because you decided to play hero and rescued a cat." Came the withering reply.

"I did play hero, but my catch was a little bigger than a cat. Okay, so, I might have a heavily bleeding and maybe dying man on my tabletop."

"Why not take him to a hospital?" Vlad asked annoyed.

"Because I accidentally turned him into a halfa...And you know what happens to our blood tests." He couldn't help but put on an awkward smile.

Silence.

"You're still in New York, right? Bring him to Dalv Corp. I'll be there soon. You know to find the medical bay." Vlad sounded entirely done with Danny's bullshit.

"Yeah, sure. I'll meet you there. Thanks!" He said, hanging up in one fell swoop. 

He turned his attention to the still unconscious man on the table. Who was also still naked. "Yeah, I'm not going to carry you there like this. I'll need something to wrap you in."

Turned out said something was a bedsheet, his silk bedsheet. The fucker better understand what Danny was sacrificing here. You do not get blood out of silk. Period. Or maybe you could, and Danny was just that lazy of a fucker to never do it, but anyway, Double D better appreciate it.

So, Danny flew off with the Devil again, wrapped in silk sheets, towards the Dalv Corp. building.

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

The lower levels of Dalv Corp. were handled solely by ghosts. As Vlad thought them to be harder workers, as they didn't need to sleep, eat, or go home to bothersome families. Which was right, but also put Danny on edge each time he visited.

His Ghosts Sense always went haywire for a split second before calming down again, a bit like sensory overload his Ghost Sense just couldn't handle the sudden influx of ghosts. In his arms, the Devil shivered violently before calming down again. Seems like he has a Sense too, Danny noted.

The head doctor was already waiting for him in the doorway, impatiently tapping her green foot against the tiles.

"Mr. Fenton, what a pleasure. I heard from Mr. Masters that it concerned a human this time?" She asked in a sweet falsetto. While Double D was laid down on a gurney and wheeled into the OR, by a team of doctor ghosts.

“Good to see you too, Emma. I may have found this one under a collapsed building, and turned him into a halfa.” He didn’t hate Emma, but she sure hated him, she was a renowned doctor when she was still alive, one of the first to specialise in surgery. It must hurt her pride that she was forced to patch up all of Danny’s accidents, like the cats and dogs he’d brought in before, but she always did do a great job.

“We’ll patch him up,” She snapped out a little too cold. 

Danny stood alone in the foyer for a moment and took a deep breath. Everything was going to be okay. Double D would pull through.

“I see you’re on Emma’s good side again.” A smooth voice just behind him mused. 

“Well,” He answered, not at all fazed that Vlad was there. “I did bring her something to work on this time. He’s in terrible shape, and he would be dead if I hadn’t saved him.” 

Vlad let out a little snort. “We’ll see about that when he wakes up. Not everyone wants to be saved, Daniel.”

Danny merely shrugged and began walking to the observation area. Vlad followed behind him. Dalv Corp. was a massive building. A penthouse at the top and a secret ghost department underground were the cherry on top. Now, walking through the familiar halls of the medbay, Danny couldn’t help but wonder how his life had turned out this way.

The doors to the observatory opened silently, and let the two men pass. It was a general lookout area for Vlad or anyone else, to watch the operation without facing the wrath of three angry doctors and a squad of nurses.

“Do you even know who he is?” Vlad asked as he laid eyes on the man.

Danny pulled his shoulders up in a halfhearted shrug. “Have you been keeping up with the news? Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, another guy I can’t remember the name of, and Daredevil were involved with the Midland Circle collapse. He’s Daredevil. Though I have no idea who he really is. In civvies, I mean.”

Vlad let loose another round of calculated gazing before he snapped his fingers and said, “Hmm,” A hint of distaste in his voice. “Matt Murdock. He and his partner Franklin Nelson took down Wilson Fisk a couple of months ago. Don’t get me wrong, Fisk was a horrible man, but he did good business. So I wasn’t that thrilled when he got himself captured. Of course, I made sure that all the dealings I did with the man were squeaky clean. No need to throw this hungry lawyer a bone.”

“Weren’t they the people that fucked up the Frank Castle case too?” Danny asked surprised. “The name Murdock rings a bell.”

Vlad hummed. “Yes, you’re right. But we only ever saw Murdock in court once. He was probably too busy with his nightly activities to make a solid statement.”

“Wasn’t the thing about Murdock that he was blind?” That lit up a whole new string of questions. “How does a blind guy run around beating up petty criminals?”

Vlad pressed the button of the intercom. “Emma, dear. Can you check if your patient is blind?” 

“Patient’s pupils are not responsive, haven’t been since the start of the operation. Running thesis is that the patient was blind before the accident.” She answered crisply before starting another stitch in Matt’s side.

“Well, I’ll ask him when he wakes. I’m fucking exhausted now. Do you have a spare room I can use to take a nap?” He asked the billionaire.

“Main floor, third corridor on the right, second door to your left. You’ll find a closet with clothes in it, and a bag of toiletries in the bathroom.” Vlad said with a smirk on his face.

“We’re gonna have a conversation about this later, Vlad. You’re scoring higher on the creep factor again.” 

Vlad just smiled his unhinged villain smile again, and Danny let out a suffering sigh before going down and finding his room.

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

He felt like he was swimming underwater. Sounds and smells came to him in waves. A hint of antiseptic, a whiff of morphine. The sound of a needle breaking skin. He didn’t know where he was, and he couldn’t feel his limbs. His senses were scattered to the winds, and he couldn’t rope them back in. Everything was sharp, then dull, then sharp again. Too intense, it hurt. God, it hurt. He opened his eyes, but he couldn’t see. Why couldn’t he see? Help. Please. He begged. His throat felt raw, unused. Filled with blood and gravel. Hurt blazed through him again. Then everything dulled. The pain, the sharpness, his senses flew away from him again. Darkness. Pressing down on him.

“It’s going to be okay, Matt. You’re gonna be fine.” A voice he didn’t recognise.

Sleep.

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

Danny was quite rudely awoken by his Ghost Sense going off, and an insistent knocking at his door. 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m up. Just let me get dressed first.”

The pounding didn’t stop.

Danny hastily pulled on a black sweater, and a pair of sweatpants. Before stomping towards the door, hand alight with ghostly green flames. 

“What?” He yelled as he opened the door.

The ghost didn’t look impressed, and said in a monotone voice, “Your patient is showing signs of awakening soon. Mr. Masters said to call you .” 

The flames in his hands died down, and he gave a quiet, “Thanks.” to the ghost, but they’d fled already.

It had been weeks, with no sign of life from Double D. Danny had often wondered if the man would ever wake again. The nurses had all been very helpful and redressed his wounds whenever it was necessary. Danny meanwhile, had stayed in his room at Dalv Corp. and was doing his work as a mechanic from there.

He found his way back to the medbay and quickly located the much healthier looking and cleaned up body of Matthew Murdock.

Danny pulled up a chair, thankfully not one of those cheap plastic ones that slowly kill your butt, but a comfortable padded one. The doctors did a good job stitching him back up, Danny commented in his head. Next to the bed was a thin folder with all the information he and Vlad had been able to cook up about Murdock. It went from sightings of Daredevil, followed by pictures of Murdock and Nelson in court. Middle name, birthday, Battlin’ Jack Murdock, Vlad really went all out. He laid it back down, not sure if he really wanted to read through everything again. 

He was pulled out of his thoughts when a quiet, breathy moan escaped Matt’s lips.

“Hey, buddy. How are you feeling?” He asked while grabbing hold of one of Matt’s hands.

“Where am I? Who are you?” He shook off Danny’s hand and brought a hand to his face, rubbing at the bandages surrounding his head.

“My name’s Danny. I brought you to a hospital. I found you in Midland Circle.” Danny silently reached over to gently swat Matt’s hand away from the bandages. “I can’t have you fucking up your wraps, buddy. The head doctor is gonna be mad at me if she has to do them again.”

Matt went still at the word hospital and minutely cocked his head to the right, just to let out a frustrated groan a moment later.

“Do you need anything for the pain?” Danny asked, misinterpreting the gesture. 

“No drugs. Catholic.” Matt whispered before patting down his chest and side, letting out an angry hiss when he hit a sore spot.

Danny let out a derisive snort. He’d forgotten about the Catholicism, honestly what good Catholic goes out at night dressed as the Devil of all things. 

“Something wrong with that?” Murdock asked as he tried to prop himself up, but failed miserably.

“Nah, just that I don’t really believe in God. A higher power, sure. God from the Bible, no.” He knew a ghost that could change Time. He wasn’t going to put his faith in anybody else.

“How long has it been since the collapse?” 

Danny sighed, he knew this question was coming. “Weeks. You’ve really been out of it Murdock.” He admitted.

“Fuck.” Matt spat out, before whirling his head towards Danny, unseeing eyes darting back and forth. “You know my name.” 

“When I found you in the Devil suit I didn’t. It was my friend who figured it out. Really, not so hard now when you’ve got missing posters strung up all nice and pretty around the city.” Danny commented dryly.

It had come as a complete surprise when missing posters of Matt Murdock had popped up about a week ago. For a month people had ignored the fact that pro bono lawyer and general good guy Matt Murdock had disappeared for some reason, but last week someone had started by filing a missing person report and attaching missing posters all over Hell’s Kitchen. Maybe it was to not immediately tie Matt to the disappearance of Daredevil, but Danny hadn’t a clue who it was.

“How are people looking for me? You said this was a hospital.” Matt murmured angrily. 

“Private hospital, medbay really.” 

“You aren’t working for Stark or SHIELD, right?” A hint of despair ghosting through Matt’s voice.

“You wish. Those puffed up peacocks over at SHIELD would love to figure out how a blind man goes parkouring at night. And I’m sure they’ll be extremely interested in you now.” Danny cursed himself from saying the last part. He’d had a month to get used to the idea of halfa Matt, Murdock himself hadn’t heard yet.

The Devil picked up on the change in Danny’s voice. “What did you do to me?” He said, limbs quivering with anger and fear.

“Don’t get all worked up about it, you can’t leave anyway. You’ll only hurt yourself if you try and get up. Just,” Danny laid a gentle hand on Matt’s chest. “let me explain.”

Murdock seemed to understand that he was in no position to move, as he inhaled sharply when he tried to turn on his side to roll out of bed.

“I’ll get a nurse to restrain you if you keep trying to escape,” Danny warned as his finger hovered over the call button.

“Fine, tell your story.” Matt bit out.

“You were pretty banged up when I found you in Midland Circle. Heartbeat on the fritz, losing loads of blood. I tried to get you with me, but you kept whispering about someone else. And then just as I was picking you up, your heart stopped. Naturally, I panicked. Like what do you do when the guy you’re trying to save just fucking dies? I gave you CPR, probably broke another rib, but your heart still wasn’t beating.” 

Danny took a deep breath here. Which caused Matt to raise an eyebrow. Silently asking, and? Danny chuckled awkwardly before continuing.

“So this is where the weird part happens. You know what they do in tv shows?” He asked.

“Does it look like I watch a lot of tv?” Matt fired back.

“Oh sorry, stupid question. Well, they shock people with electricity to get your heart pumping again. So I did. I shocked you with electricity.” Danny finished lamely.

“You just so happen to carry shock paddles around with you?” Murdock asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice. 

“No, but I can generate it.” Danny flung back with equal amounts of venom.

Matt didn’t seem surprised. Living in New York tends to do that to you. 

“I’ve got powers, okay? I guess you could say I’m a mutate. But, I’m more commonly known as a halfa. Half human, half ghost. When I shocked you with electricity, it wasn’t just that. It was ectoplasm infused electricity. And I mi-” 

“You changed me into a halfa too,” Matt concluded. 

“Yeah, basically.” Danny blinked.

“How do I get rid of it?” Matt bulldozered through.

“You don’t. It’s genetically bonded to your DNA now. Removing it would kill you.” He said seriously.

“What are the downsides to having these powers?” Matt didn’t seem to care that he was making Danny highly uncomfortable.

“We’re not sure. There are only three, four with you, of us. We don’t know our natural lifespans, but I can guarantee that it’s not shorter than normal.” Danny had a hopeful smile on his face.

“But no obvious downsides?” Matt repeated. Sitting up a little straighter than before.

“No, but we do have lots of perks. We have in-” Danny was again cut off as Matt ripped out his IV and swung his legs out of bed. 

“I get that you want me to be a part of your family, kid. But that’s not happening. Thank you for saving me, but I’m going home now.” He stood up a little shakily, groaning and hissing from the pain, but still intent on walking away.

“Matt, I don’t think you understand. You need to learn how to control these powers, or you could get yourself or others in danger.” Danny said as he stood in front of the older man and tried to keep him from walking away.

Matt roughly shoved Danny out of the way, unintentionally with superstrength, and almost threw Danny through a wall.

Danny had to blink a couple of times for the blackness to recede, while calling out, “MATT!” As he picked himself up.

Murdock showed no signs of stopping until something odd happened. The lower half of his body suddenly turned intangible causing him to sink into the floor. His heart rate and breathing picked up suddenly, and he let out a strangled cry as he resolidified with half of his body stuck in the linoleum.

Danny knew from experience that shit like that hurt, as your molecules wove themselves through the material you were stuck in, setting your nerve endings on fucking fire.

“Idiot,” Danny mumbled as he picked himself up and made his way to the hyperventilating and screaming Murdock.

“You understand why you have to stay here, now? You have a lot more nifty powers like that one that nobody but my friend and I can help you with.” He gently put his arms under Matt’s armpits and made the other intangible again, pulling him out of the woodworks, literally, and setting him back down again when he was tangible.

Danny was already holding out a bucket for Murdock to puke into when Matt heaved and expelled the little amount of food they’d been able to get him to eat through a tube.

“Do we have an understanding, Mr. Murdock?” Danny asked as he stuck out his hand to help the other up.

Matt gave a begrudging nod and took Danny’s hand, who led him back to the bed and reinserted the IV.

“You aren’t a prisoner here, Matt. You’re free to go. Just don’t expect me to come running when you go splat against the sidewalk when you come down from an unexpected bout of flight.”

Danny held up his hand again. “Deal?”

“Deal,” Matt answered as he shook the offered hand, head hung low.

“Good.” Another voice said from the doorway.


	3. Wayward Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not entirely happy with how this chapter turned out. But I'm done re-editing everything, so here ya go. Hope you all enjoy.
> 
> PS: There is like one more angsty chapter before this story pulls its shit back together and we weave in some humour. Or at least, I tried.
> 
> PPS: There are some important notes at the end if you are confused by the things that happen in this chapter.

“Good.” Another voice said from his place over at the door.

“Matt, meet Vlad. My friend and owner of this medical facility.” Danny explained as Matt tried to commit the sound of Vlad’s voice, heart rhythm, and the way he walked, to memory. Something about the man seemed off. His world on fire was dancing with a flickering almost living thing under both Danny’s and Vlad’s skin. Now he was focussing on it; he could feel a weaker flickering like that under his skin, pulsating lines of power thrumming just beneath the surface.

“You must be the other halfa.” He stated.

Vlad smiled, “Outstanding Mr. Murdock. What tipped you off?”

“Danny’s use of the word friend, and the fact that you’ve got the same sort of energy buzzing around you.” Matt bit his lip, obviously doubting if he’s said too much.

“A keen Spectral Sense, or Ghost Sense, as Daniel often calls it. When Daniel is near a ghost, a wisp of cold air usually escapes his mouth. When I’m near a ghost, a flash of heat travels through my body. I can’t feel you Spectral presence yet, but that will come soon.”

Matt had no intention to correct Vlad on his assumption but just nodded slightly.

A sudden wave of tiredness washed over him, and Matt laid back against the pillow beneath his head. Moving had been a terrible idea. His side was screaming at him, and his head felt like it had a ball of lead stuck inside. His senses worked fine. More so than he had expected. Though he could have sworn that his hearing hadn't been as clear when he’d first woken.

“Maybe we should leave Mr. Murdock to recuperate a bit more before we continue. Let’s go, Daniel.” Vlad said as he draped an arm over the young man’s shoulder, and the both of them walked away.

He let out a shaky breath when the two of them were out of earshot. He focused on the energy beneath his skin again. Stick had once taught him that the body could heal itself if you could find your inner power and redirect it to the place you wanted to treat. This time he didn’t have to fight to get a hold of that energy, it was already there. Experimentally he coaxed some of it towards the burning in his side. With a gasp, he felt it gather there. Spreading little tendrils of power over the wound. He let out a groan as he felt the wound slowly stitch itself back together. That hurt like a bitch.

Out of nowhere, his head pitched sideways, and up was down and down was up and left, right, circles, everywhere.

Dark.

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

He woke to the sound of Danny whistling a merry tune from the chair next to his bed.

“I see someone found out about his healing factor. You gave the nurse quite the shock when she changed your dressings.” Danny mused as he laid down the machine he was tinkering with.

“How’d you know I was awake?” Matt slurred a little as he fought through the cobwebs in his head.

“Your heartbeat and breathing pattern changed,” Danny stated matter-of-factly. Lounging in his chair. “You’ll get used to it soon enough.”

Matt wanted to snort, he was used to it already, but that did explain that even though he was pretty sure his ear was busted, he could still hear perfectly. It did complicate that he was probably going to suffer through sensory overload again.

“You’ve got supersenses?” He asked innocently.

“Yup,” Danny answered, popping the p. “20/20 vision, not that you’ll notice, your healing factor won’t rewire your brain to see again. Enhanced smell, touch, hearing, taste. All the good stuff. Do stay away from processed foods, though.” The young man added as an afterthought. “That shit is tainted.” He finished with disgust.

“I’ll keep that in mind. Why did I pass out before? I was just healing my side when everything went dark.” Matt wondered with genuine concern.

“Okay, you can sense the amount of energy at your disposal, right?” Danny sat back up straight. “Your body is continuously healing itself at a slow rate. You can speed up the process by localising it as you did before. The problem is that you can only take as much as your body is willing to give. If you force more energy than you can afford to one spot, it will leech it away from other areas, like your heart or your brain — vital areas. You need ectoplasm too keep the factory running, take too much away and the factory shuts down. It’s a like a built-in failsafe. I had this too when I first began. I broke my wrist in the courtyard at school and was so focused on healing it that I fainted during class.” All the while, Danny gestured wildly with his hands, not caring that Matt couldn’t “see” what he was doing.

“When I first restarted your heart, I gave you a little bit of startup ectoplasm. Since then your body has been producing it on its own. You will only ever generate as much as you need. If you fight a lot using energy blasts, as I do, you’ll generate more. If you’re content to use your powers once in a while, you will need to be careful as not to use up too much.”

Matt honestly hadn’t expected Danny to be so forthcoming about it. He had a whole scale of follow-up questions, but he could throw those out the window after Danny’s thorough explanation.

Danny picked up on Matt’s surprise. “I told you before, Matt. You aren’t a prisoner here. It’s clear that you want to leave as soon as possible, and I’ll give you all the tools necessary, I only want to make sure that when you walk out the front door, you’ll walk out safely.” He said, no stuttering heartbeat, no lies.

“Do you have any other burning questions?” Danny continued in Matt’s silence. Not disturbed at all by the lack of verbal response.

“Why are you doing this?” The lawyer asked as he fiddled with the hem of his blanket.

Danny’s head hung low in shame, and his voice sounded strained when he said, “I turned you into a halfa. Without knowing if you would have wanted it. So I feel that it’s my responsibility to make sure that you stay safe, at least from yourself and your newfound powers.”

“Thank you. For the consideration.” Matt said quietly.

“I’ll let you rest now, and you still heal better when you're asleep. Goodnight, Matt.”

“Goodnight, Danny.”

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

He couldn’t sleep right away. Nerves and worries keeping him up and churning in his stomach. He wanted to leave, but Danny’s words kept haunting him. Saying that he wasn’t a prisoner was easier said than done, but they hadn’t really done anything to hurt or inhibit him. Danny genuinely didn’t want him to suffer, and only had pure intentions. He didn’t know about Vlad, and the guy seemed a little off, but maybe that had other reasons. The dilemma in his head was like a fight or flight reaction. Or he could fight and struggle his way out, which probably wouldn’t work as he was extremely weak now, or he could cooperate. That thought alone made him squirm inside, but then again, did he really have a choice? Danny only wanted to help him, and fighting him would only make things worse, but helping them and telling him about himself also felt wrong somehow. Saying nothing wasn’t an option, as it would be just as detrimental to getting him out of there as lying and struggling would. They did know his identity, which was incredibly concerning, and maybe working with them would keep their mouths shut. 

Matt decided that he wouldn’t hinder them. But he also wouldn’t be giving away his secrets like candy. That was a fine line to walk, but Matt was willing to chance it. To protect himself, and his friends.

.o0o.o0o.o0o.

Instead of the light fluttering heartbeat, he was used to hearing when he woke up. It was the steadier, heavier heartbeat of Vlad.

“Are you guys on a roster or something? I’ve never woken up alone.” Matt croaked as he sat up in his bed, feeling loads better after a good rest.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Murdock. To answer your question, no. I merely popped in to see if you were awake.” Vlad spoke calmly.

Matt could hear the rustle of paper and figured Vlad must be reading a book.

“You popped in with a book?” Matt asked sceptically. Eyebrows raising ever so slightly.

“Touche, and well heard. Daniel will be pleased with your quick adaptation to your senses.” Another rustle of a page being flipped.

“Why do you call him Daniel?” Matt grabbed the railing of his bed with one hand and gently picked up the glass of water he asked one of the nurses to bring earlier. This caused Vlad to pause for a moment.

“How on earth did you do that?” Vlad asked as he zeroed in on the glass of water, before looking up at Matt’s eyes.

Matt smirked a little. “20 questions?”

Vlad seemingly amused by the whole idea nodded a little, before responding with a verbal, “If you insist.”

Matt had to give it to him, Vlad could handle his own slip-ups pretty well. “Why do you call him Daniel?”

A snort escaped Vlad’s lips as he laid his book down on Matt’s bedside table, and folded his hands into his lap. “I think it sounds nicer. No other reason. Now, how did you do that?” Curiosity seeping into his voice, as he leaned forward a little.

“I was blinded by a chemical spill when I was nine, took me a while to notice, but I realised that my other senses started to compensate for my loss of sight. And not just compensate, everything heightened to incredible degrees. After my dad died, and I was sent to live in the orphanage run by the nuns of my church, everything became too much. I had a couple of bouts of sensory overload and the nuns called in an expert to help me. He trained me to use my other senses, to see.” Matt’s thoughts turned dark as he thought of Stick, and with him, Elektra.

“You’re going to have super enhanced senses, now. Maybe Daniel can build you something to help with the sensory overload.” Vlad picked up on Matt’s mood and rubbed temples. “If you hadn’t noticed before, Daniel has quite the guilt complex, about bringing you back _and_ turning you into a halfa. He tends to think with his heart and not with his head, which has led to some problematic situations before.” Vlad voice tapered off at the end and let the billionaire let out a tired sigh.

“About that,” Matt cut in, “how do you create a halfa? Danny tried to explain some of it, but I didn’t really understand.” And honestly, Matt was fed up with not understanding. Danny made it sound like he’d just shocked his heart back into working with the added bonus of superpowers, now though, after having put more thought in the term half ghost he wasn’t so sure anymore.

Vlad’s face scrunched up in obvious disdain. He rubbed the bridge of his nose before he settled back in his chair and sighed again. “Daniel and I, have very different opinions about our creation. I for one, believe that we are simple mutates. We came in contact with a high dosage or a high powered dosage of ectoplasm, and it changed our genetic makeup.” He finished with a clipped business like tone.

“How so?” Matt ventured, taking another sip of water.

“My own creation was like that.” Vlad started his tale. “It happened in university, where I was roommates and study buddies with Daniel’s parents. We wanted to know if we could create a rift between our world and the next. Our calculations were rickety, but I had such high hopes. The day we decided to test our proto-portal, I got hit in the face with a beam of charged ectoplasm.” The corners of Vlad’s mouth turned down into a grimace.

“I was hospitalised immediately, as I developed a severe case of acne. The doctors didn’t know if it was contagious, so I was put in quarantine — no visitors, no contact to the outside world, for a year. When I came back out, I was a changed man. Bitter from the lack of communication, talking myself into not wanting it in the first place.” Vlad stood up and began to pace back and forth.

“I figured out my powers not long after that and spent years honing them into perfection. I won’t lie and say that I didn’t use them for nefarious means, I might have forced a deal here and there, intimidated some people.” He shrugged. “I don’t do that anymore, but I won’t pretend that it wasn’t extremely lucrative.” Vlad gestured to the building around him. “Before you ask, no I didn’t kill anyone.”

Matt’s protest died on his lips. He shifted, slightly uncomfortable with the casual way Vlad mentioned it all. “What happened to Danny?”

“Daniel’s accident and creation is something of a sore spot for him. His parents continued our line of work and made a bigger portal in their basement. When Daniel was 14, they decided to plug it in, but alas nothing happened. Until Daniel stepped inside and pushed the on button.”

Matt shot Vlad a sceptic look. “You mean to tell me, that they put the on button on the inside?”

Vlad pursed his lips and cast his eyes down, “Daniel was electrocuted by the portal. He’s only told me once, but I can only imagine the pain. Daniel is of the opinion that he needed to die to deserve these powers, instead of some freak mutation when his systems got flooded with ectoplasm. His guilt eats at him like that. Forcing him to keep putting himself in danger to earn his powers. A nice side effect of turning on the portal was that his hometown was flooded with ghosts. Knowing that his parents weren’t equipped to fight them, he suited up his alter ego Phantom and started beating up the bad guys. Kind of like Daredevil.”

Matt scoffed, “Isn’t that a little pretentious? Acting like you know exactly why I go out dressed as the Devil at night?” He stopped his train of thought for a moment. This was a _big deal,_ though. Danny had died in one of the worst and most painful ways to go and blamed himself for it afterwards. Or at least, blamed his powers. No wonder the kid sounded so broken when he confronted Matt about the implications of being a half ghost.

But who did he believe? They were like two ends of the spectrum. Vlad with his mutate theory or Danny who thought that he needed to die to get his powers.

Now, though, really thinking about it, it was like a fucked up version of Schrödinger’s cat. The ectoplasm could have restarted his heart, or the electricity could have. Or they could both have. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to believe, either.

Bringing people back from the dead was a subject he never wanted to touch again. Elektra had left two burning holes in his heart, and his own guilt complex wasn’t making it easier. Him sitting here as a newly turned halfa didn’t help things either.

That sparked a small ray of hope into his heart. “The term half ghost implies the existence of full ghosts?”

“Ghost is the umbrella term, but yes there are full ghosts, in the spirits of the dead kind of way. People who had a traumatic death, or who simply couldn’t move on to the next plane.” Vlad sat back down in his chair, while he shot Matt a calculating look.

Matt cocked his head to the side. “Like Heaven or Hell?” He asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. We’ve never had anybody come back.” Something in Vlad’s voiced changed when he said that last part, sounding a lot like lingering guilt. Matt knew that sound well from his own pity talks with Foggy.

After a pressing silence, in which Matt was grateful that he couldn’t see the expression on Vlad’s face, Vlad booted back up to teacher mode.

“As I was saying, umbrella term. Some entities call themselves ghosts but are actually the embodiment of a collection of thoughts. That sounds like a lot of mumbo-jumbo, but the best example is the Fright Knight, the embodiment of fear. Or mythological creatures like dragons.”

Vlad knew exactly what Matt was asking about, but kept evading the question.

Matt hesitated. He wanted to know, needed to know if they were still out there. Elektra, Stick, his dad. The people that mattered to him. His throat constricted, the words not forming. A strange whine escaped his mouth and Vlad must have caught the _agony_ in that whine as he shook his head.

“Living like that. As a full ghost. Is a pain unimaginable.” Vlad’s words sounded forced and thick with emotion. “If they’ve moved on, it’s for the better. It means that they were okay with the life the lived, and at peace with the way they died.”

“Where is my peace?” Matt yelled angrily as he ripped the glass from the table and hurled it across the room.

It shattered against the wall. The soft tinkling of the falling pieces, a loud deafening clatter to his ears. 

He’d lost so much, already. Why did he come back when they didn’t? Why did he deserve to come back? 

Vlad stood up and laid a warm hand on Matt’s shoulder. “That’s the burden of living.”

And then he was gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay if you're confused as to why Matt first says that's he's gonna keep his secrets a secret, and then tells Vlad anyway. Matt is pretending to be helpful, which he kinda is, but most of this is public knowledge, even the trained by Stick part. If he pretends to be super helpful all the time, Danny and Vlad aren't gonna question/bother him more. And as he said before, he isn't trying to hinder them, and telling them about his supersenses is sorta necessary if he doesn't want to slow down his recovery time. So, yeah, Matt's going to seem eager to share his secrets/abilities, but he isn't actually giving them anything they didn't know already. Then again, he also isn't going to be a sulky child that doesn't share anything with the class.


	4. Transformation Central

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *dodges stakes and pitchforks* Hello, my lovely readers. I am very sorry for the extreme delay, and shortness of this chapter. I haven't been writing much as of late, *cough* school *cough* and I wanted to give you something, as to not disappoint you all for too long. Still not very happy with the way it turned out, but at least it's something, right? Well, enough babbling, go enjoy your 8 minutes of reading time...
> 
> Dang. Way too short.
> 
> Also, my eternal thanks to the lovely commenters. They really get me in the writing mood again. Thanks again to everyone who dropped kudos and/or comments. Love you all!

Chapter 4:

Matt wanted to punch something. More so than usual. He’d been confined to his bed for at least a week now, well 5 if you counted the weeks he hadn’t been conscious, and he was itching to get out and do something. After his awkward not meltdown with Vlad, Danny had taken it upon himself to get to know him a little better and teach him some more about ghosts. Which meant very awkward questions and no way to avoid them. In turn, Danny had shared some of his finest moments with Matt as well. They were slowly setting in a mutual camaraderie, but the one thing Danny didn’t seem to understand was that Matt was going absolutely crazy just sitting and sleeping all day.

So when Danny showed up with a pair crutches and a face-splitting smile on his face, Matt was relieved.

“Emma gave you the all clear, and kindly told me to get the fuck out of her medbay, so that’s what we’re gonna do,” Danny said with an easy smile as he leant the crutches on the side of the bed, and helped Matt disconnect himself from all the wires tubes and other thing attached to his body.

Matt couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the way Danny looked at things. He knew how to keep the mood light but still get the message across.

“Witty banter.” Danny had said. “It works to keep the bad guys from guessing your next move when you’re rambling so much. It also works to annoy the heck out of them.” He gave a playful shrug.

“Thanks.” Matt murmured as he took the crutches, which he needed because not using your muscles does that to you, and hobbled behind Danny.

After the initial ghost freak out, Matt had started to think about other things that had been neglected as he’d been recovering. Rent, gas, water, normal stuff like that. Danny had told him not to worry, as Vlad would be paying for everything when it turned out his rent had been paid already. Danny had then asked if there was someone they should have contacted, but Matt had given a firm no. He wouldn’t depend on Karen and Foggy. Wouldn’t turn their back into even bigger targets. He couldn’t do that to them. Again.

“Do your friends know about your alter ego?” Matt asked as Danny lead him through the maze that was Dalv. Corp.

“They were there when it happened. Kinda hard for them to not know.” Danny answered as he took a left.

Matt hesitated slightly, “Were they ever targeted by your enemies?”

Danny huffed, “Yeah, they’ve been targeted. But I think I know where this is going and no, I wouldn’t change it if I could.”

“But you’re putting them in danger.” Matt insisted. “That doesn’t matter to you?”

“It does, but they wouldn’t leave me behind. Trust me, I’ve tried.” The kid shrugged again.

“Obviously you didn’t try hard enough.” Matt pushed. He wanted Danny to take him seriously.

Danny stopped in the middle of the hallway. “I split myself in two, that’s how hard I tried.” He sniped. At Matt’s expression, he let out a sigh and motioned for the older man to follow him again. “Look, my parents built this machine, the Ghost Catcher. To separate a ghost from a human. I kept missing appointments with my friends, and we were all kinda fed up, so I went through to create two of me. Hero, Phantom, me, and fun, normal, me. It didn’t work out. Turns out, I needed both halves of my life to be me. Shocker.”

Matt was the one who stopped this time. “That’s you, not your friends. How do you not see the point?”

Danny pinched the bridge of his nose, before letting his hand fall to his sides. “The point, Matt,” He began, “the point is that this is about you. You keep telling yourself that distancing yourself from your friends is the right thing to do. To keep them safe. I get it, I get the idea, but you need to realise that this is still about you. You are having trouble balancing your life as Matt Murdock v. Daredevil. And I just told you, you can’t just cut out half of your life either. You can’t stop being Matt Murdock, but you also can’t stop being Daredevil.”

Matt looked like he still didn’t understand a word of Danny’s ramble and Danny looked like he wanted to shoot the man with an ectoblast.

“Your friends are a part of Matt Murdock. That means that you can’t stop your friends, from being your friends. Besides, isn’t that partially their choice too?”

Here Danny pointed his finger at Matt. “You, the real you, is a mixture, a balance, between the two. Find that balance, Murdock, and we’ll have this discussion again. For now, here’s your room. Freshen up and I’ll come to pick you up in an hour for training.”

Matt didn’t start it up again when Danny came to escort him to the training area. But he did want to punch the kid. Maybe he could in training. A man could hope.

The training area was huge. He should have expected it. Vlad was a billionaire, and billionaires did eccentric things, like building a training area the size of an Olympic stadium. It had a climbing wall, nice, he added in his head. He liked climbing walls or fire escapes, or rooftops.

_Insert comic panel about Matt climbing and shouting, “It’s okay, I’m blind!” No honestly, look it up. Welp, here it is anyway._

__

A general exercise theatre, and a specialised area for target practice. He heard a strange humming in the ceiling and wondered if that was for flying practice.

“This,” Danny opened his arms wide. “is our training facility.”  
Matt grinned as he let his senses pick up the details around him. This was going to be fun. “Where do we start?” He asked eagerly.

Danny made a “follow me” motion with his hand and sat him down on a thick training mat. “We can’t do anything intense before you regain some muscle strength, but I was hoping I could let you experience what some of powers feel like. So that you can differentiate what your body is doing without, you know, having to see the result.” Here Danny shrugged a little, and Matt could hear the shy smile in the tone of his voice.

Honestly, he’d hoped for a more rigorous training, involving some of the advanced equipment in the room, but he did understand Danny’s point. So he nodded.

“Right, so the first thing I want to check is to see if you can transform. I saw that you had a ghost form, but now I want to see if I can force you to trigger the transformation.”

Danny stood up and took about three steps back, before spreading his arms and whispering, “Going Ghost.”

Something green and blue lit up Matt’s world on fire. It concentrated around Danny’s midriff and grew from there. Lighting Danny up in a swirl of cold blue and supernatural green. He could also hear the buzzing on Danny’s skin pick up slightly.

“I don’t know what it looks like to you, but all my colours are inverted. My hair is white instead of black and my eyes are green instead of blue.” Danny looked at himself and added, “Oh, and I glow.”

Matt cocked his head to the side, better examining the way the energy swirled around Danny. “What did you mean, force the transformation?”

“Vlad and I found out that we can trigger the other’s transformation when we touch each other. You can block it if you expect it, but as you have no experience I don’t think that’ll happen. The easiest way to learn this is to add a trigger word, or phrase, to the change so that everytime you say the words you won’t have to think consciously think about changing.”

“And you found Going Ghost was a good phrase?” Matt chuckled. In his weird perception, an extra swirl of green gathered around Danny’s cheeks and he knew the Ghost Boy was blushing.

“Well, I was fourteen at the time, and it wasn’t that dumb. Who’s going to say Going Ghost on a daily basis? It can’t be something you say a lot or else it wouldn’t work.” Danny countered defensively, but with good humour.

“I think I’ve got the perfect phrase,” He said after a moment's worth of thinking.

Danny de-transformed and took Matt’s hand in his own. “Now this is going to feel really strange, and it will take some getting used to, but I think you’re gonna love it. Just think of the phrase for now and we can check if it works later. Ready?”

Matt took a deep breath, and let his senses fold inward, only focused on him. “Yes.” He breathed slowly.

“Welp, here we go then. Going Ghost.”

Matt gasped as the energy from Danny’s waist, flowed into his hand, in into Matt’s system. It was like a tidal wave of cold, that assaulted him from all sides. Not entirely unpleasant, but very strange nonetheless. It flowed through his veins, into his skin, all the way to his marrow. It covered him from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. There was no mistaking it. This was power. And it felt good.

All too soon for Matt’s taste, the wave was cut off and like a slowly ebbing sea, it retreated back under his skin. Waiting and dormant.

Danny let go of his hand and stood back again. “Ready to try that yourself?” He asked with a wide grin.

“Yeah. Let me try.”

In. Out. In. Out. Relax.

“Let the Devil out.”

Nothing happened. 

And a second later Matt felt a tidal wave of cold flood his entire being.

“That is an awesome phrase, and you look incredible. I’m fangirling so hard right now.” Danny said bouncing on his feet and a grinning like a loon.

It felt incredible too, he thought, as he rolled his shoulders and the familiar crinkling sound of kevlar greeted his ears. His senses were a little of, but nothing a bit of fine tuning wouldn’t fix. Some objects around him had also taken the same weird green blue hue as Danny. Leading Matt to believe that they were spectrally enhanced.

“Very good job, Matt. Really, much better than I did on my first try.” Danny was still beaming with pride, and guided Matt to sit back down.

“I’m going to give you a quick rundown of your basic powers, and what they feel like. Triggering them just as I did the transformation. Is that okay with you?”

Matt cracked a small grin himself, “As if you need to ask.”

“Good. We’ll start with intangibility first.” 

Danny took his arm, and promptly made it intangible.

It was odd, like a feeling of pins-and-needles running up and down his arm. As if it had been dunked in a bucket of ice.Danny guided his arm down to the mat, and dipped it into the soft spongy material. Matt tried very hard not to panic, as the semi-familiar sensation spiked in his gut. Where he’d been stuck mere weeks ago. Danny as if sensing his dread, slowly took it back out again, and released his arm when it was out safely.

“I know how unpleasant it feels, getting stuck like that on your first go, but you have to get over this block if you want to control this power. Don’t worry, though. You won’t need to do it perfectly now, we have time. But we are going to work on it again, later. Okay?” He asked with true concern in his voice.

Matt nodded, and steeled his nerves. One bad experience wasn’t enough to beat a Murdock. He’d been beaten by Stick often enough to get up when he was down.

“Let’s move on, and then we’re done for the day. I want you to feel what invisibility is like.”

Danny still had a grip on his arm and turned it invisible. Yet, Matt didn’t “see” any changes in his world on fire. His limb was still there, but there was a sensation he couldn’t quite place.

“I think this is going to be more difficult than I thought.” Danny mused as he saw Matt’s lack of reaction. “Of course, you can’t see the direct result, which makes it harder, but you just have to get to know the sensation,” He said as he dropped the arm he was holding.

The older man tried to hide his disappointment, but apparently failed as Danny made a quiet reassuring noise. “Don’t let this get you down, Matt. You did great today. Transforming like that. You did very well.”

Matt couldn’t shake the feeling that Danny would have said that no matter what happened. 

“Hey cheer up. At least you don’t have to sleep in the medbay anymore. You can walk around and explore a little. Come on, let’s change you back and go hunt down some lunch, yeah? You deserved it.”

“Sure, lead the way.” He said, frowning a little.


End file.
